OK Fandom Something that comes up in every shield or weapon discussion that always bothers me: the statement "Drones ignore shields." Following their introduction in "Lost City," destroying all of Anubis' fleet in about a minute, they have been hailed as the ultimate, omnipotent weapon, capable of phasing through shields, ramming through bulkheads, and detonating with great power.
Is this really true? SG-1's evidence does point to their ultimate-weapon status. In "It's Good to be King," two drones fired from a puddle jumper impact a Goa'uld ship without shield interference and moments later, the whole ship blows up. It's accepted that in that occasion, Jack got lucky and hit something important, leading to the ship's destruction. After all, it took what is accepted to be tens of thousands of drones to wipe out Anubis, requiring whole swarms to pass through dozens of impact points. But that's the extent of SG-1's use of drones: two episodes, used against one race's ships.
In Atlantis, drones are used quite often, even being the only canon weapon used by the Ancients on their Battleships and Cities (energy weapons of some kind are shown on Aurorae, but never mentioned in dialogue). Drones are used against Wraith ships, Earth ships, Ancient and Asauran ships, and planetary surfaces. How do they perform? Against Wraith darts, one is enough to take it down. Cruisers take moderate damage from one and are destroyed by about 30, and hives go down when assaulted by a swarm of a few hundred. Ancient-built puddle jumpers' shields successfully deflect drone impacts (shields that are not standard equipment on PJs but are a modification of the cloak). Apollo's shields hold up against drones, though we are never given an indication of how long they would last. Drone impacts against land provide no bigger explosion than Alkesh bombs.
So, by race assuming shields were at full in every battle:
Wraith: N/A
Goa'uld: Ignores shield
Ancient/Asauran: Deflected by shield
Earth/Asgard: Absorbed by shield
Doesn't seem to me like they are all that uber in ignoring shields.
I would go further and say that perhaps drones couldn't bypass a Goa'uld ship's shields either. In IGTBK, Aries' Ha'tak has just arrived in orbit and faces no threats to itself. The jumper shows up a few minutes later, and from Aries' perspective it is a fly that couldn't possibly threaten him. Therefore, he declines to raise shields. This is like our first glimpse at Goa'uld shield when Apophis refused to raise his shields until the last second: the Goa'uld are overconfident and Aries didn't consider the jumper's weapons a threat. The two lucky hits from the jumper were in fact educated guesses on the part of the drones based on Jack's knowledge of Goa'uld ship design. He has been all over Ha'taks and he knows were the good parts are. And if shield generators come down from two grenades, the power generator could conceivably be overloaded by impact from two fast-moving battering rams.
The situation is similar with Anubis' fleet, in terms of shields. Anubis we threatened only by Prometheus, whose weapons were almost gone, and no match for Anubis' armor anyway. The drones too the fleet by surprise, and by the time they realized they were weapons, their shield generators were probably destroyed and the ships were about to blow. So on both occasions we could argue that the shields were not up and therefore the drones impacted the hulls directly.
The other examples of drones not bypassing shields are often dismissed with the qualification "Drones ignore shields, except Ancient and Asgard shields. The problem is, those are the only kind of shield we ever see them face other than Goa'uld shields. And furthermore, Anubis' shields were almost certainly Ancient-based. Consider the events of "Revalations." Anubis upgraded his ships to resist Asgard weapons using the knowledge he gained from ascension, from the ancients. He also downloaded the contents of Thors mind, so he maybe even have legitimate Asgard-based shields if he develops the technology from then to "Lost City." So, really, the only fully Goa'uld ship we see vs drones is Aries' Ha'tak.
So, given all the evidence, can we really claim that drones are shield-ignoring battering rams? I put forth that this interpretation of events shown on screen is fanwank at best.
Is this really true? SG-1's evidence does point to their ultimate-weapon status. In "It's Good to be King," two drones fired from a puddle jumper impact a Goa'uld ship without shield interference and moments later, the whole ship blows up. It's accepted that in that occasion, Jack got lucky and hit something important, leading to the ship's destruction. After all, it took what is accepted to be tens of thousands of drones to wipe out Anubis, requiring whole swarms to pass through dozens of impact points. But that's the extent of SG-1's use of drones: two episodes, used against one race's ships.
In Atlantis, drones are used quite often, even being the only canon weapon used by the Ancients on their Battleships and Cities (energy weapons of some kind are shown on Aurorae, but never mentioned in dialogue). Drones are used against Wraith ships, Earth ships, Ancient and Asauran ships, and planetary surfaces. How do they perform? Against Wraith darts, one is enough to take it down. Cruisers take moderate damage from one and are destroyed by about 30, and hives go down when assaulted by a swarm of a few hundred. Ancient-built puddle jumpers' shields successfully deflect drone impacts (shields that are not standard equipment on PJs but are a modification of the cloak). Apollo's shields hold up against drones, though we are never given an indication of how long they would last. Drone impacts against land provide no bigger explosion than Alkesh bombs.
So, by race assuming shields were at full in every battle:
Wraith: N/A
Goa'uld: Ignores shield
Ancient/Asauran: Deflected by shield
Earth/Asgard: Absorbed by shield
Doesn't seem to me like they are all that uber in ignoring shields.
I would go further and say that perhaps drones couldn't bypass a Goa'uld ship's shields either. In IGTBK, Aries' Ha'tak has just arrived in orbit and faces no threats to itself. The jumper shows up a few minutes later, and from Aries' perspective it is a fly that couldn't possibly threaten him. Therefore, he declines to raise shields. This is like our first glimpse at Goa'uld shield when Apophis refused to raise his shields until the last second: the Goa'uld are overconfident and Aries didn't consider the jumper's weapons a threat. The two lucky hits from the jumper were in fact educated guesses on the part of the drones based on Jack's knowledge of Goa'uld ship design. He has been all over Ha'taks and he knows were the good parts are. And if shield generators come down from two grenades, the power generator could conceivably be overloaded by impact from two fast-moving battering rams.
The situation is similar with Anubis' fleet, in terms of shields. Anubis we threatened only by Prometheus, whose weapons were almost gone, and no match for Anubis' armor anyway. The drones too the fleet by surprise, and by the time they realized they were weapons, their shield generators were probably destroyed and the ships were about to blow. So on both occasions we could argue that the shields were not up and therefore the drones impacted the hulls directly.
The other examples of drones not bypassing shields are often dismissed with the qualification "Drones ignore shields, except Ancient and Asgard shields. The problem is, those are the only kind of shield we ever see them face other than Goa'uld shields. And furthermore, Anubis' shields were almost certainly Ancient-based. Consider the events of "Revalations." Anubis upgraded his ships to resist Asgard weapons using the knowledge he gained from ascension, from the ancients. He also downloaded the contents of Thors mind, so he maybe even have legitimate Asgard-based shields if he develops the technology from then to "Lost City." So, really, the only fully Goa'uld ship we see vs drones is Aries' Ha'tak.
So, given all the evidence, can we really claim that drones are shield-ignoring battering rams? I put forth that this interpretation of events shown on screen is fanwank at best.
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